Philae (Agilkia Island)

Introducing Philae (Agilkia Island)

The romantic aura and the grandeur of the Temple of Isis (adult/child E£40/20; 7am-4pm Oct-May, to 5pm Jun-Sep) on the island of Philae (fee-leh) lured pilgrims for thousands of years, and during the 19th century the ruins became one of Egypt’s most legendary tourist attractions. After the building of the old Aswan Dam, Philae was swamped for six months of every year by the high waters, allowing travellers to take rowing boats and glide among the partially submerged columns to peer down through the translucent green at the wondrous sanctuaries of the mighty gods below.

After the completion of the High Dam, the temple would have entirely disappeared had Unesco not intervened. Between 1972 and 1980, the massive temple complex was disassembled stone by stone and reconstructed 20m higher on nearby Agilkia Island. Agilkia was then landscaped to resemble the sacred isle of Isis.

Although the cult of Isis at Philae goes back at least to the 7th century BC, the earliest remains on the island date from the reign of the last native king of Egypt, Nectanebo I (380–362 BC). The most important ruins were begun by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and added to for the next 500 years until the reign of Diocletian (AD 284–305). By Roman times Isis had become the greatest of all the Egyptian gods, worshipped right across the Roman Empire even as far as Britain. Indeed, as late as AD 550, well after Rome and its empire embraced Christianity, Isis was still being worshipped at Philae. Early Christians eventually transformed the main temple’s hypostyle hall into a chapel and defaced the pagan reliefs, their inscriptions later vandalised by early Muslims.

Last updated: Mar 2, 2009